In a former clothing store in Santa Monica, young entrepreneur Hawk Products lives on Tiktok, sometimes lasting many hours in a marathon. Fans and customers can stroll to the floor once filled with shelves of fashionable ladies’ clothing, watch them work and buy some merchandise.
Nearby, people play miniature golf in a former food court, and in that court the holes were designed as small movie suits, which were deliberately made for Instagram to increase the client’s social media feed. Children putts during the day. After dark, the date crowd and cocktails in the karaoke lounge are busy flowing.
On the promenade on Third Street, the shock of a kimchi shot popped up in a vintage storefront in the 1960s, last occupied by footwear seller Adidas.
Jayna Elizabeth sells products to audiences on Oltlandish Live Tiktok in Promenade, Third Street.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The shop’s conversion customers are passive consumers to places where they participate in the action, reflecting the changes in shopping habits brought about by the Internet and the growing desire for sharing experiences for many young people.
The hazy pandemic memory is also involved in the trend in anxiety isolation and distance from others, said David Greensfelder, a Bay Area retail consultant.
“We really want to do something when we finally get rid of our collective timeout corner,” he said. “Generally speaking, we still really want to do something.”
It is well known in the real estate business that the concept of “experience retail” is nothing new – for example, in the 1970s, Chuck E. Cheese combined food with arcade games and family rather than just eating.
But the latest growth in experience retail combines a desire for positive experiences for landlords to fill space. Malls have been struggling for decades as department stores mergers are not popular. The pandemic will only speed up the trend of shopping at home and buying. Wonders are a way to get people to show up in person and possibly patronize other businesses.
General Manager Simon Whicker stands inside Holey Moley, a miniature golf course that includes golf holes, a bar and a karaoke room.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
This is a strategy accepted in Santa Monica, with 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Place shopping destinations with Try to attract customers In recent years. One of the challenges of the promenade is its size – in an era when many large retailers reduce their footprints, unusually large stores in shopping malls can be difficult to fill.
Landlords have shown willingness to try out tenants they may have been considered impossible.
“It was really unheard of for kimchi five years ago in brick-and-mortar stores,” said Andrew Thomas, CEO of Santa Monica Inc., a private nonprofit that promotes the city’s business district.
Young entrepreneur standing in small stalls, Eagle living in Tiktok on the promenade of Santa Monica Third Street.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Kimchi is popularplayers can retain court time at the former Adidas store, are part sports clubs, part clothing retailers and part restaurants. This hybrid approach can stimulate more business – Splatter Studio On the 4th Street near the promenade is a part of the bar and part of the art studio, where the suitable clients in Coveralls absorb the cluttered “masterpieces”.
Thomas said the group activity proved attractive.
“Many people want to gain more experience in a fun and exciting destination,” he said. “What they can do can be paired on Instagram and played with friends.”
The mini golf center Holey Moley Golf Club is also a restaurant, cocktail bar and karaoke Lounge, all elements designed to get people out and participate in what General Manager Simon Whicker calls “competitive social.” These 27 holes are small, but nods carefully decorate the nostalgic decorations of the 1980s and 1990s.
He said the site is a “multi-sensory maze” that includes neon signs with cheeky slogans and hand-painted murals. After 8pm, only adults can play, with DJs and strolling magicians performing on weekend nights. Cocktails are served in ceramic unicorns and miniature bathtubs.
The young man played small golf balls on the small golf course of Holey Moley, each hole designed as “Instagramable”.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Social media is the main driver of Tiktok content factory Overlandish, with creators hired and trained by stores to sell products such as nutritional supplements, clothing, fitness gear and gum. These brands rent stalls from Overlandish. Customers can watch creators enthusiastically push their merchandise to their online audience, and perhaps buy their merchandise.
CEO William August said the quirky goal is to combine “the excitement of live interactive shopping with personal connections to in-store visits”.
“We have the ability to bring global, world-renowned brands to customers and visitors in Los Angeles,” he said. “There is then that local audiences can enter their own live streams and interact with audiences around the world.”
Lee Shapiro, a real estate agent for Kennedy Wilson, said the business is experiencing retail in a variety of formats, and he specializes in sales and rental retail properties.
He said a few years ago, many targeted families with children, such as indoor trampoline parks and Chuck E. Cheese. Now everyone is following adults who have concepts like Holey Moley and Punch Bowl Social that combine diet and drinking with nostalgic entertainment such as billiards, bowling, darts and arcade games.
The audience watched the Seek Inkersive performance experience at Cosm in Ingwood.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
Host of Hollywood Park Retail Center in Ingwood COSMIt’s an immersive theater with plush stadium seating and surround screens with a 87-foot diameter with a live-action resolution that zooms out to the venue that opened last year. Las Vegas sphere.
Entertainment and a sports-focused venue puts spectators in the best seats in events such as Cirque du Soleil, NBA basketball and the World Series while eating and drinking. COSM has its own production team, able to shoot events from up to 10 different Vantages, while also providing network feeds on virtual screens in the corner.
For example, although millions of viewers are watching Freddie Freeman’s Walking Grand Slam in Game 1 In the World Series at Fox’s Angle, the COSM crowd experienced it from the seat behind the plate at Dodger Stadium.
COSM’s reaction is “Pandemonium”, COSM CEO Jeb Terry says.
Other experience sites use virtual reality, e.g. Exhibitions about Titanic Come to the Beverly Center Shopping Center in Los Angeles in March. Visitors wearing headphones will actually descend to the infamous wreckage that exists today, then seemingly date back to 1912, before the ship sank and wanders in public places such as the grand staircase, restaurant and bustling deck.
At the Topanga Village shopping center in Warner Center, people wearing VR gear can fight virtual zombies and other attackers on their heads and bodies, or compete with each other in the “Squid Game” simulation Sandbox VR.
Greensfeld said young people are driving the trend of active participation.
“In Gen Z, you see a huge desire to really have an in-person experience again,” he said. “They are going back to the mall.”
For users of social media like Tiktok, “It’s not surprising that my cohort of kind is very experienced driven, contrary to material driven. They also want to experience it for themselves.”
